A FRENCH writer has been accused of exploiting the Lockerbie bombing in a tacky spy novel.

Gerard de Villiers has angered the families of those killed in the terrorist attack with his book Ghosts of Lockerbie.

The cover features a sexy model holding a gun in each hand.

Les Fantomes de Lockerbie by Gerard de Villiers (Image: Handout)

According to his novel, the Iranians carried out the bombing in a revenge attack and persuaded Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to take the blame for it.

De Villiers, 83, is regarded as France’s equivalent to James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora died in the Lockerbie bombing at the age of 20, said: “It is an exploitation of the Lockerbie tragedy. The families have had to live with a lot of pain caused by these things.

“I would like to see Lockerbie treated with at least some dignity.

Daniel and Susan Cohen who lost daughter Theodora in the bombing (Image: Daily Mirror)

“It was a horrible tragedy and I don’t like it being turned into an escapist novel.

“The book is fiction but the sad thing is that fiction is often taken to be the truth by people, particularly if they don’t know anything about the subject.”

Les Fantômes de Lockerbie is de Villiers’s 197th novel in his SAS series about Austrian prince and CIA agent Malko Linge.

SAS stands for the prince’s title of Son Altesse Serenissime (French for His Serene Highness).

The series has sold about 100million copies worldwide, though most of his books have not been translated into English.

In the Lockerbie book, de Villiers’s fictional spy is sent by the CIA to find evidence of Iran’s involvement to force them to abandon their nuclear programme.

The damaged cockpit of the 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie (Image: AFP/Getty Images)

But Frank Duggan, of US-based Victims Of Pan Am Flight 103, said: “There was, and is, some suspicion that Iran had a role in the Lockerbie bombing but there was never a shred of evidence.

“Gaddafi and the Libyans clearly planned it, put the bomb on the plane and admitted it was because the US had bombed Tripoli in 1986.

“The case against a state-sponsored terrorist was decided by a unanimous Scottish court and upheld on appeal.

“I am sure it will be a good book and perhaps a movie but it is fiction.”

Libyan secret service agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of killing 270 people in the bombing of the plane over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988. Megrahi was released from Greenock jail by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill in August 2009 after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

He was given three months to live but died in May last year.

According to de Villiers’s novel, the Lockerbie attack was carried out in retaliation for American warship USS Vincennes downing an Iranian passenger flight five months earlier, killing 290 people.